I think I surprised everybody with my choice.
Oh, I suppose they all expected me to pick Chandler. Sure. But I figured that would be like naming a dog Dog. Too commonplace.
Hammett, Spillane, Himes, or even Tracy (after old Dick) would also have been on the list of unsurprising choices for those who knew me. I imagine more than one might have bet on Fernández as a logical pick—after all, without Vasily and his powers, Makrow 34 would still be a thorn in everyone’s side, and I’d still be just plain Raymond.
But Slovoban? Nobody saw that coming. An old gypsy mafioso I’d only met twice? (Though the second time around he did save my life, of course.) A heroic death, but a suicide, after all.
I hope Vasily finds out what I did someday, out there among the Grodos. He left before I was given the honor.
Some have told me that this story shouldn’t get filed away in a bureaucratic report. They say I should write it all down, in words, old style, the way Chandler would have done it. The original Raymond.
And maybe I will. Someday.
If I do, I’d like to begin this way:
The desert wind was blowing that night, loaded up on red dust….
Rome, October 23, 2002